Earthmoving machines such as loaders may be used to move earth, rocks, and other materials from one place to another. These machines may be rated for a particular maximum payload. Lifting and carrying payloads above this maximum payload may be dangerous because the excess weight at an elevated position may make the machine unstable, particularly when driving over uneven surfaces. In addition the machine components such as the lift linkage can fall because they may not be designed to regularly handle payloads in excess of the maximum payload for which the machine is rated. Even if no immediate harm is manifested by an overload, the machine components can wear more quickly.
Systems have been designed to monitor the payload on earthmoving machines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,211,471, issued to Rocke et al. on Apr. 3, 2001, (“the '471 patent”) discloses a loader having a payload monitor. The '471 patent further discloses that the loader may dump material from the bucket if the payload determined by the payload monitor is above a desired amount. However, the desired amount above which the '471 patent will dump material is not a maximum payload for the loader itself, but rather for a hauling vehicle that the loader may be loading. The payload monitor adds the payloads from each bucketful and compares the total to the maximum payload of the hauling vehicle. If dumping the measured payload from the bucket into the hauling vehicle would exceed the maximum payload of the hauling vehicle, then the loader may automatically dump some or all of the payload in the bucket in order to avoid overloading the hauling vehicle. Therefore, while the system of the '471 patent may prevent overloading of the hauling vehicle, it does nothing to guard against the ill effects of overloading the loader itself. Further, the system of '471 patent does not prevent lifting of a payload exceeding the maximum rated payload for the loader.
The present disclosure is directed to one or more improvements in existing payload monitoring systems.